Whether views of the Chief Economic Adviser and the Finance Minister were taken before the sudden announcement of demonetisation of high-value currency notes by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8?
The Reserve Bank of India feels this query cannot be answered under the Right to Information Act as it does not come under the definition of information under the transparency law.
The applicant wanted to know whether the views of Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley were taken before the announcement was made.
“The query is in the nature of seeking opinion from the CPIO which is not defined as information as per Section 2(f) of the RTI Act,” the RBI said in response to an RTI query.
Asked whether the information sought will fall under “seeking opinion” from the CPIO, former Chief Information Commissioner A.N. Tiwari said, “No. It does not. It is a fact sought by an RTI applicant. The CPIO cannot say an opinion has been sought from him.”
“How it can be called seeking opinion? Whether someone was consulted or not is a matter of record. Had the question been that should views be taken then it would mean taking opinion,” former Information Commissioner Shailesh Gandhi said, expressing surprise at the response of the RBI Central Public Information Officer.
The query was also sent to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Finance Ministry but it remained unanswered. — PTI
